


The Best Worst Thing that Hasn't Happened to You Yet

by autoeuphoric (FreezingRayne)



Category: Hustle Cat
Genre: First Meetings, M/M, Magic, Power Sharing, Pre-Canon, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 21:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7331275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreezingRayne/pseuds/autoeuphoric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The prickles scream into electricity. Graves feels caught, pinned by the boy's eyes and then pinned by a big hand pressed to the center of his chest. He smells metal and cigarettes. </p>
<p>(graves and nacht meet. sparks fly)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Worst Thing that Hasn't Happened to You Yet

**Author's Note:**

> here have some nacht/graves power-sharing backstory with bonus Yaoi Tropes

Like calls to like. 

Graves reads it in one of his mother’s books and he thinks he understands what it means. The cats that find him wherever he goes and press their soft noses to his hands, whisper their twisty thoughts into his head. The magic he feels in the wind, the dirt, the sunshine. 

There is magic in everything. It’s comforting.

_Like calls to like._

On the day he finds out what it _truly_ means, the world sits on the edge of a storm, clouds stacking, air tumescent and still. Graves is on the corner after the last day of school before summer break, waiting for his father to remember to pick him up. He is late, he will probably be later, and Graves doesn’t have an umbrella. 

A slow prickle builds on his scalp and seeps down his neck. At first he thinks it has started to rain, but he isn’t wet and it builds and builds to a buzzing, hissing tension. Not pain, not pleasure--just sensation, energy, untapped and shivering with potential. He shakes out his hands and expects sparks to drip form his fingers. 

Graves has never been able to actually _become_ a cat before, but he somehow knows that he could do it now. Drop down to four legs and dart off between the trashcans and tepid puddles, get lost in the hillocky grass of the vacant lot across the street. 

But then they are here, and Graves is paralyzed. 

They move like pack animals, loping strides, sharp shoulders slicing through black tanktops, silver jewelry flashing, a pair of red laced boots crushing garbage beneath their spiked heels. Graves feels monumentally small beside them, a brittle boy in a faded t-shirt, hair a sweaty snarl. They glide past, and the last one…

Graves knows immediately and without explanation that the feeling is coming from him. He is tall and heavy-shouldered, dressed all in black with a wild toss of pale curls. The sudden wind thrashes them into his eyes and across his forehead and he lets it, hands dug deep into his pockets. 

Graves holds his breath as he walks by and inside him the static builds and builds. 

Like he has caught Graves’s scent, the boy stops. His head rolls on his neck. Graves has never so fervently wanted and not wanted something as he both wants and does not want this boy to look at him. His heart is a fist in his chest. 

The prickles scream into electricity. Graves feels caught, pinned by his eyes and then pinned by a big hand pressed to the center of his chest. He smells metal and cigarettes. 

“Cut it out, kid. You’re giving me a migraine.” He looks down at Graves and laughs, like everything about him is hilarious. “You’re gonna get gobbled up if you go around _leaking_ in a place like _this_.” 

Graves can’t form words with most strangers, let alone ones that make every molecule inside him whirl like it’s in a blender. But he swallows a few times and manages, “I’m waiting for my ride.” 

The boy’s smile starts on the left side of his face, the right side stuttering to catch up. Despite the bravado and easy disdain, Graves can tell he is feeling the same thing. His pulls is thudding in his throat, his shoulders rising and falling in tight stutters. Without realizing it, they have begun to breathe in tandem. 

“I’m Nacht,” the boy says. His pupils are huge. “I’ll give you a ride.” 

\--

Graves hunches over the Grimoire, desk light turned down as low as it can go while still leaving the words legible. He likes to imagine this is his mother’s handwriting, but he doesn’t have anything to compare it to. When she left she had taken every trace of herself, except for these books and Graves. 

It takes him until every light in the rest of the house has gone out to find anything. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, and even if he did there’s no table of contents, no headings, no bibliography. The book hops from topic to topic, distressed, manically detailed. 

But finally--

_Resonant Pairs: When a witch discovers a partner with whom their magic is especially complimentary, an interesting phenomena may occur. Their magic will compile and amplify, sometimes becoming more than three or four times more powerful than either of the practitioners alone._

_Resonant pairs will find themselves drawn to each other, sometimes irresistibly._

Graves presses his fingertips to his chest, remembers how being near Nacht had made him feel more somehow. Filled all the way up. 

_Beware, any witch who finds their complement--resonant pairs can very easily become codependent, and often destructive to each other and those around them. Such a connection should only be used with caution, and as a last resort._

\---

The next morning Graves sits on the front porch with a cup of coffee. He likes coffee. It’s comforting. A cat sits curled on his lap, purring a steady rumble against his thigh. It isn’t his cat, but that doesn’t matter. 

A green SUV pulls into the driveway. At first Graves thinks it’s just turning around, but then he sees Nacht hanging out the window. It’s a different car than the one he had driven Graves home in the day before. He smacks the horn and the cat on Graves’ lap yowls and shoots off into the bushes, nicking his jeans with her claws. 

“You getting in or what?” Nacht’s voice says he already knows the answer. 

Graves wants to be annoyed--there are boys at school who act like this and he can’t stand them--but even from this far away he can feel the trembling tug on his insides. With a slow wash of nerves he climbs into the passenger seat. Nacht’s smile is full of knives, bare arms sleek with muscle, wrists draped over the steering wheel. It's early but it's already hot, and perspiration glistens at the crooks of his elbows. 

“Where are we going?” Graves asks, rolling the words around in his throat a few times before he gets them out. 

“Does it matter?” 

Sitting next to Nacht feels like sitting on a sled at the top of a steep and snowy hill. He knows the crash is inevitable, but from here the ride looks worth it. 

"Not particularly."

**Author's Note:**

> son you got a big storm coming
> 
> i originally intended this to be much longer and follow them into college and their inevitable spiral into sex, drugs, and magic but. i have so many projects going right now. maybe next time. 
> 
> all the backstory/magic system stuff is totally my own speculation.


End file.
